Clandestine

Chapter 26

    She hated her life. In her short twelve years of life, she had grown accustomed to hearing the angered scream of her father and the anguished screams of her mother. When she was younger she couldn't understand why she had to go to her room when her father would break a glass or his tone of voice became less gentle. It wasn't until she was seven, a spark of curiosity hit her and she wanted to know what happened when she was in her room. She snuck out and hid on the stairs only to shriek in fright when she saw her father strike her mother and cal her horrific things. Since then she was highly aware of every tick her father had and he stopped hiding her animosity forwards their family.

    One particular night he had come back from the bar completely hammered, stumbling through the door with half his shirt untucked, his tie undone, and hair askew. Her mother had run up to him to help him only to be backhanded. She collapsed onto the wall, gripping it to help her stay up. He then started screaming loudly at her while advancing on her. Each shout was accompanied by a slap or kick. It got to the point where her mother was rolling on the floor. Hearing the commotion she ran out of her room to see her father above her mother. On instinct, she jumped in between only to be on the receiving end of her father's rage. That was the first time he hit her, but not the last.

    By the time she was sixteen, she had a book full of creative excuses for the black marks that appeared on her face and the burn marks on her arms. After the one hit that one night her father enjoyed involving her in his anger management activités, but that never deterred him from what he did to her mother. At that time she also turned to drugs in order to take her pain away. She had no friends because her father wouldn't let her have any and if she were to squeal on him he claimed she wouldn't live to see another day, so drugs became the friends she lacked, but after a while, their sweet serenity numbed and she was back to feeling everything. She needed something stronger.

    The idea came to her in her chemistry class one day. Her teacher was explaining elements and combining them. When he started going on about how medication was made she decided she was going to try it herself. She figured she had nothing to lose. After school she snuck into the classroom and stole an abundance of random elements, taking them home. That night she spent conducting experiments, mixing different ingredients together like a mad scientist, however, she never got the desired results. She spent weeks sneaking and stealing supplies trying to make her own drug concoction until she did it. She made herself a hallucinogenic that numbed all the senses for hours, enough for her injuries to start healing before she was alert.

    She started taking her drug as if it was aspirin, two at a time several times a day. Word spread amongst the girls in the school about the drug and suddenly the girls' bathroom became her business ground. The drug wasn't just her little escape, it was everyones. It was the beginning of her enterprise, but like always the drugs wore off and reality took over and as time went on her reality got harsher.

    When she was seventeen her father broke her; not physically, he had done that before, but emotionally, mentally. One night she came home late from selling her drugs behind the supermarket. It seemed like any other terrible night, but that changed when she heard the pure fear and agony of the scream her mother produced. She rushed into the house, but it was too late. Her mother laid motionless on the floor while her father stood above her with a bloody knife. The only good thing in her life was gone. The woman who attempted to make her childhood as innocent and happy as possible, who read her bedtime stories and danced with her to the songs on the radio was dead. She stared at him with hate in her eyes. She wanted to watch him burn, no she wanted to watch the world burn.

"How could you?!" She marched up to him pushing him back. "How could you?!" Her screams mixed with her tears.

    She shoved him back hard enough for him to stumble back and trip. He fell hitting his head on the counter before dropping to the floor. She wasn't thinking rationally at that point. She ran up the stairs and dragged a suitcase out of her bag. She flung clothing into it before bringing it downstairs. In a frenzy, she started dowsing the house with her father's alcohol and turning on the stoves. She took the lighter her dad left by his ashtray and her suitcase to the door. She glanced around the place she never considered home, mostly to make sure her father was still there and she didn't leave any of her drugs behind and tossed the lighter to the ground. The house went up in flames as she exited. It was going to be a long walk to the bus station, but it was worth it to get away from that life and start a new one. This new one was going to be her fresh start to live how she wanted and it was going to start with her building an empire.